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Employment and Jobs, Healthcare and Taxes Are Most Important Issues as Connecticut Voters Consider Candidates for Governor, Congress, Legislature

By Kristi Sullivan, 860.571.71367/23/2018

About two-thirds of Connecticut residents cited employment and jobs, healthcare, and taxes most frequently as very important issues they’ll consider when voting in elections this year – whether the candidates are running for Governor, the state legislature or the U.S. Congress.

With primary elections just weeks away, the findings of the latest statewide InformCT Consumer Confidence Survey of state residents show that those three issues, plus education, are identified by 60 percent or more state residents as they look ahead to voting this year. Those issues are most frequently identified as “very important” in state races, such as Governor or the state legislature, as well as Congressional races.

The issues of government budgets, gun policies, and national security and terrorism were seen as “very important” by about half of state residents. Even fewer residents viewed income inequality, criminal justice, immigration, social issues, climate change, foreign affairs and trade as very important issues they would consider in making voting decisions.

The survey, conducted for InformCT, found:

In voting for Governor, residents view the leading “very important” issues as employment and jobs (64%), followed by healthcare (63%), taxes (63%) and education (62%).

The percentages are nearly identical, but slightly more residents view Healthcare (67%) as the most important issue in Congressional races, followed by taxes (66%) and employment and jobs (65%).

Deemed very important in voting on state House and Senate candidates are employment and jobs (66%), healthcare (65%), taxes (64%), and education (61%).

InformCT is a public-private partnership that provides independent, non-partisan research, analysis, and public outreach to help create fact-based dialogue and action in Connecticut. The survey is administered by researchers from the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, Inc.

Also among the survey findings:

In Congressional races, foreign affairs and trade were cited least often as being very important, with less than one-third of Connecticut voters - about half as many as indicated employment and jobs, healthcare, taxes and education were very important.

Narrowly, the issues of education and jobs, healthcare, taxes, education, government budgets, gun policy, criminal justice, social issues, climate change were more often seen as very important to voting decisions in state legislative races than in the election for Governor.

Gun policies (51%), National security and terrorism (51%), and income inequality (48%) were viewed similarly, cited as very important issues in Congressional voting by about half of state residents surveyed. Immigration and criminal justice were also on a par, with both issues seen as very important by 44 percent.

Of the 14 issues included in the survey, 11 were seen as more important to decisions in Congressional election than elections for state offices: healthcare, taxes, government budgets, national security and terrorism, income inequality, criminal justice, immigration, social issues, climate change, foreign affairs, and trade with other countries.

The online survey of 505 state residents, conducted in late June 2018, has a margin of error of 4 percent.